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We, as black folks have to do a better job. Someone working at Wal-Mart with seven kids, you are hurting us.

They're standing on the corner and they can't speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk: Why you ain't, ... Where you is, What he drive, Where he stay, Where he work, Who you be... And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. And then I heard the father talk.
Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these
knuckleheads. You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of
your mouth. In fact you will never get any kind of job making a decent living.

People marched and were hit in the face with rocks to get an Education, and now we've got these knuckleheads walking around. The lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal. These people are not parenting. They are buying things for kids. $500 sneakers for what? And they won't spend $200 for Hooked on Phonics.

I am talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit. Where were you when he was 2? Where were you when he was 12? Where were you when he was 18 and how come you didn't know that he had a pistol? And where is the father? Or who is his father? People putting their clothes on backward: Isn't that a sign of something gone wrong? People with their hats on backward, pants down around the crack, isn't that a sign of something?

Isn't it a sign of something when she has her dress all the way up and
got all type of needles [piercing] going through her body? What part of Africa did this come from?? We are not Africans. Those people are not Africans; they don't know a thing about Africa .....

I say this all of the time. It would be like white people saying they are European-American. That is totally stupid.
I was born here, and so were my parents and grand parents and, very
likely my great grandparents. I don't have any connection to Africa, no
more than white Americans have to Germany , Scotland , England , Ireland
, or the Netherlands . The same applies to 99 percent of all the black
Americans as regards to Africa . So stop, already! ! ! With names like Shaniqua, Taliqua and Mohammed and all of that crap ......... And all of them are in jail.

Brown or black versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person's problem. We have got to take the neighborhood back.
People used to be ashamed. Today a woman has eight children with eight
different 'husbands' -- or men or whatever you call them now. We have millionaire football players who cannot read. We have million-dollar basketball players who can't write two paragraphs. We, as black folks have to do a better job. Someone working at Wal-Mart with seven kids, you are hurting us. We have to start holding each other to a higher standard.. We cannot blame the white people any longer.'

Cos CauseClaim: Item reproduces excerpts from a speech given by comedian Bill Cosby.

CORRECTLY ATTRIBUTED

Example: [Collected via e-mail, October 2005]

They're
standing on the corner and they can't speak English. I can't even talk
the way these people talk: Why you ain't, Where you is, What he drive,
Where he stay, Where he work, Who you be... And I blamed the kid until I
heard the mother talk. And then I heard the father talk.

Everybody
knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You
can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. In
fact you will never get any kind of job making a decent living.

People
marched and were hit in the face with rocks to get an education, and
now we've got these knuckleheads walking around. The lower economic
people are not holding up their end in this deal. These people are not
parenting. They are buying things for kids. $500 sneakers for what? And
they won't spend $200 for Hooked on Phonics.

I am talking about
these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit.
Where were you when he was 2? Where were you when he was 12? Where were
you when he was 18 and how come you didn't know that he had a pistol?
And where is the father? Or who is his father?

People putting
their clothes on backward: Isn't that a sign of something gone wrong?
People with their hats on backward, pants down around the crack, isn't
that a sign of something? Or are you waiting for Jesus to pull his pants
up? Isn't it a sign of something when she has her dress all the way up
and got all type of needles [piercing] going through her body?

What
part of Africa did this come from? We are not Africans. Those people
are not Africans; they don't know a thing about Africa. With names like
Shaniqua, Taliqua and Mohammed and all of that crap, and all of them are
in jail.

Brown or black versus the Board of Education is no
longer the white person's problem. We have got to take the neighborhood
back. People used to be ashamed. Today a woman has eight children with
eight different 'husbands' — or men or whatever you call them now. We
have millionaire football players who cannot read. We have
million-dollar basketball players who can't write two paragraphs. We as
black folks have to do a better job. Someone working at Wal-Mart with
seven kids, you are hurting us. We have to start holding each other to a
higher standard.

We cannot blame the white people any longer.

Origins:
On 17 May 2004, at an NAACP event commemorating the 50th anniversary
of Brown vs. Board of Education, the landmark Supreme Court decision
that struck down school segregation, entertainer Bill Cosby gave a
speech on the theme of blacks in America taking responsibility for their
own lives. In his exposition to that assembly, the man known to
television viewing audiences as lovable, kindly, yet permanently bemused
patriarch Dr. Huxtable spoke harshly about his

perception of the
ills affecting black American society. He cited elevated school dropout
rates for inner-city black students and criticized low-income blacks
for not using the opportunities the civil rights movement has won for
them. Blacks, by their unplanned pregnancies, poor parenting, lack of
education, non-standard English, counter-culture dress, and involvement
in crime, fail the black community as well as themselves, he said.

That
May 2004 speech has been both praised and condemned, and excerpts from
it have been cobbled together (often in forms that rearrange and present
them out of context) and circulated on the Internet under titles such
as "We Can't Blame White People" and "Bill Has Done It Again."

Bill
Cosby has not repudiated his controversial pronouncements or attempted
to distance himself from them. Instead, he has chosen to expand upon his
theme on subsequent occasions and to make himself a spokesperson for
black self-empowerment through education and better parenting. In the
service of this cause, he has drawn upon his celebrity to make his voice
heard; but, unlike many entertainers who take to the soapbox to decry
their bêtes noires, he brings far more to the podium than merely a
recognizable face and a fan base. This man who is best known to the
world as a comedian holds a doctorate in education. He is also highly
regarded in the African-American community, where he and his wife,
Camille, are prized for their philanthropy. (The Cosbys were present at
the NAACP event that sparked the e-mail quoted above in order to be
honored for their open-handed generosity in donating money to black
colleges.)

Dr. Cosby defended his comments almost as soon as he
made them. The day after, he said in an interview: "It makes no sense to
claim that these are things that belong quietly in the black community.
We have to figure out how do you get parenting back into the home. This
is a problem of epic proportion." Then, in a statement released shortly
after the NAACP gala, he made clear his purpose: "I think that it is
time for concerned African-Americans to march, galvanize and raise

the
awareness about this epidemic, to transform our helplessness,
frustration and righteous indignation into a sense of shared
responsibility and action." In another interview, he said: "I feel that I
can no longer remain silent. If I have to make a choice between keeping
quiet so that conservative media does not speak negatively or ringing
the bell to galvanize those who want change in the lower economic
community, then I choose to be a bell ringer."

In July 2004, he
again took to the public soapbox to expound upon his thesis. In a speech
given at Rev. Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition/PUSH Coalition
conference in Chicago, he said: "You've got to stop beating up your
women because you can't find a job, because you didn't want to get an
education and now you're (earning) minimum wage. You should have thought
more of yourself when you were in high school, when you had an
opportunity."

In December 2004, he addressed a panel at Medgar
Evers College in Brooklyn, telling them: "Stop waiting for a leader. Get
Up! Tell your friends. And if they can't get up, we must see about them
because they are true victims ... It's time to study four hours a day
with your children. Teach them how much they'll be worth when they have
A's instead of F's."

While the criticisms voiced by Bill Cosby
are greeted by some as a long-needed airing of problems everyone
recognizes but no one talks about, others regard them as unfairly
saddling lower-income blacks with sole responsibility for their plight.
"He unerringly and wrongly blames the poor. He seems to think that if
they would only change their minds, all their problems would go away,"
said Ronald Walters, director of the African American Leadership
Institute at the University of Maryland.

Critics also fear that
citing failures of lower-income blacks to make the most of educational
opportunities and to eschew choices that limit potential for success
(poor use of language, early parenting, often unpartnered) gives white
people the much-welcomed easy out of declaring themselves devoid of any
responsibility for the cause or continuation of black poverty in
America: "See? It's not us that puts them in the ghettos or keeps them
there, it's them." Such disavowal, while comforting to those who
instinctively seize it when it appears to have been offered, ignores the
possibility of racial economic disparity's being the result of a
combination of contributing factors rather than an either/or "If you did
it, then I didn't" proposition.

Last, Dr. Cosby's
black-negative assessments could, as some have pointed out, serve as
confirmations long sought by racists of their view that
African-Americans are inherently incapable of helping themselves, which
they would hold up as proof of their theory of black genetic
inferiority.

While the relative merit of Bill Cosby's
pronouncements might be disputed, what is not is the sincerity of the
man who made them.

Send me email updates about messages I've received on the site and the latest news from The CafeMom Team.
By signing up, you certify that you are female and accept the Terms of Service and have read the
Privacy Policy.